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was not in his best interest, both psychologists would recommend that he be found unfit.
    The next defendant was Franklin Drury. He was charged with public indecency. He, too, had threatened Jim, not to kill but to sue him. In the hospital he’d been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I had heard of this but barely knew what it was. The diagnosis came from the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
—the
DSM
, which we had not paid much mind to in graduate school, where we were distinctly not being taught to categorize patients according to collections of observable symptoms. In our outpatient clinic we didn’t have to: unable to provide the support they needed, we did not see anyone with such debilitating problems. The
DSM
was only a book of lists that I might have sat down and read with some benefit. Between George and me we had two copies. But instead I’d chosen to feel ill at ease in my unfamiliarity with its principles.
    Franklin Drury had a long psych history: multiple hospitalizations as well as arrests. The guard asked us to remove some paper clips from the table, and then he brought the prisoner in. Mr. Drury had light brown skin and had twisted some of his locks into braids and knots that made his head look like an unfinished macramé project. In a soothing voice, Dr. Young explained to Mr. Drury why we were there andlet him know that our talk was court ordered and therefore not confidential. “Your lawyer believes you’re unable to think clearly,” she said.
    “I’ve never seen that man,” Mr. Drury said, barely glancing at Jim before sharply turning away.
    “We’ve met a few times,” Jim corrected him.
    “How are you doing here?” asked Dr. Young.
    “No one will tell me where I am. They won’t give me the address,” he said. “I want to let my mother know I’m okay.”
    “Do you know why you’re here?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know who, why, or how I got here. I’ve done nothing to deserve this misery.”
    “Do you know what you’ve been charged with?” asked Dr. Pine.
    “I don’t know for sure,” he said.
    “Menacing,” interjected Jim. “You exposed yourself to two adults and told them you were going to get them, and then you asked two little girls to lift up their skirts.”
    “I didn’t,” said Mr. Drury, refusing to look at Jim.
    Dr. Young asked some questions to get a sense of our client’s history. He was raised by both parents along with an older sister, did okay in school but hadn’t had many friends, had gotten through five semesters of college before “some people tried to destroy me. They put drugs in my milk.”
    “Why would they want to do that?” asked Dr. Young.
    “I was studying math, and it was well-known that I was studying,” said Mr. Drury. “A girl was investigating the case when I was in college. She turned up dead.”
    Dr. Young and Dr. Pine scribbled notes. They tried to glean whether Mr. Drury understood basic courtroom procedures and whether he had ideas about how to proceed with hiscase. He did: he wanted to go to trial. If found guilty, which seemed almost certain, he’d be handed a longer sentence than if he simply took a plea.
    “I’m not going to plead out to something I didn’t do. I’ll testify. How can they not believe me? I’m telling the truth. I don’t have time to expose myself to nobody unless it’s a woman I like.”
    “There are witnesses. They may also ask the two little girls to testify,” said Dr. Pine. “With your history, why would the jury believe you and not them?”
    “People can assert anything, but if they don’t have proof, you can’t put a person in jail,” he said.
    “Why would they lie?” asked Dr. Pine.
    “I don’t know.” He stopped to think. “Maybe they’re involved with the same people who drugged my milk.”
    “How likely do you think that is?” she followed up.
    “I’m not sure. It’s just a guess,” he said.
    “What kind of sentence do you think you might get if you go